Amid his ongoing legal battle to restore automatic state-backed police protection for him and his family, Prince Harry believes that the withdrawal of security was a calculated attempt to force him and Duchess Meghan to return to full-time royal work.
Harry left court on Wednesday, April 9, feeling disheartened by what he heard during two days’ worth of mostly-private appeal hearings at London’s Royal Courts of Justice. In public comments reported by The Telegraph and People, Harryconfessed that his “worst fears have been confirmed” following the presentation of secret evidence in court. “That’s really sad,” he said of the legal disclosures.
Harry and Meghan’s initial proposal for post-royal life included living abroad but within the Commonwealth while simultaneously continuing their work to represent the monarchy. “We were trying to create this happy house,” Harry said of their original plan, which was presented to the late Queen Elizabeth prior to their departure from the U.K. in 2020.
After discussing the Sussexes’s plans for post-royal life in a meeting now dubbed as the Sandringham Summit in January 2020, Harry understood that his taxpayer-funded security would remain in place. Queen Elizabeth also expressed in a letter that the couple’s provision of “effective security” due to “the well-documented history of targeting of the Sussex family by extremists” was “of paramount importance” to her, court documents revealed in 2023. However, a month later, he was informed that the provision of security would be removed.
Since, Harry has legally challenged the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC), the governmental body responsible for making security arrangements and decisions. At the core of his ongoing rift with other members of the royal family is Harry’s belief that the removal of security was a tactic to force him and Meghan to return to their former royal roles by making visits to the U.K. onerous and unsafe. Connecting the dots between RAVEC’s decision and the perceived attempt to force the Sussexes’ hand “was difficult to swallow,” Harry says.
Harry’s legal team has argued in court that RAVEC’s decision was not made in accordance with their typical standard procedures, and that Harry was “singled out for different, unjustified, and inferior treatment.” His team also argued that the same reasons for the withdrawal of the Sussexes’ security does not apply to other public figures, including celebrities and former prime ministers.
Prince Harry appears at court in London amid his ongoing legal battle to appeal the removal of automatic state-backed security for his family.
While speaking with reporters outside of the court, Harry suggested that he could forgive many events that have occurred since 2016—the year he met Meghan—but compromising his and his family’s safety is not one of them. Of the “highly confidential” evidence he heard in court, Harry said, “People would be shocked by what’s being held back.” The experience has made him “exhausted and overwhelmed,” but he is ultimately “driven by exposing injustice.” When he plainly sees a wrongdoing, he wants to “get under the bonnet and fix it.”
Over the years, Harry has been embroiled in several legal battles and victories since stepping down as a senior royal. (Crucially, he secured a historic settlement and a public apology to his mother, Princess Diana, from the publisher of The Sun due to phone hacking and other privacy intrusions earlier this year.) However, Harry’s battle to restore his police protection stands out amongst them all. “This one has always mattered the most,” he said.
